The Spiral of Silence and Its Impact
on Feminist Voices in Public Opinion: A Case Study
This paper uses Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory
and women's traditional relegation to the private sphere to explain Anita
Hill's reluctance to talk about the alleged sexual harassment in the
confirmation process of Clarence Thomas. Paper argues Hill's reluctance to come
forward and speak publicly on the issue may have been affected by the two
interacting forces of the spiral of silence theory and women's historical
non-public role.
The Spiral of Silence and Its Impact
on Feminist Voices in Public Opinion: A Case Study
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory and the impact of
women's traditional relegation to the private sphere may help to explain Anita
Hill's reluctance to talk about the alleged sexual harassment in the
confirmation process of Clarence Thomas. Hill's reluctance to come forward and
speak publicly on the issue may have been affected by the two interacting forces
of the spiral of silence theory and women's historical non-public role.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa said, "The worst sickness
is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but the feeling of being respected by no one, of
being unloved, deserted by everyone."[1] It is a simple statement: people do not
want to be alone, deserted or isolated from their fellow human beings. To be
accepted may be the greatest force in one's life and yet it is a force often
unexamined in its impact on how people lead their public lives.
The spiral of silence is a public opinion and mass communication
theory that does look at the forces of acceptance and isolation and how they
effect public opinion. It is a theory that says "one's willingness to express an
opinion about an issue in the face of opposition depends upon one's perception
of the growing strength or weakness of that position in the community at
large."[2]
The Spiral of Silence and Its Impact on Feminist Voices in Public
Opinion
Noelle-Neumann referred to it as the spiral of silence because people
are more apt to be silent if their opinion is different than the majority's
opinion. In her words:
One opinion confronts ... ever more frequently and confidently;
the other is heard less and less. The more individuals perceive these
tendencies and adapt their views accordingly, the more one faction appears to
dominate and the other to be on the downgrade. Thus the tendency of the one to
speak up and the other to be silent starts off a spiraling process which
increasingly establishes one opinion as the prevailing one.[3]
Why do most people keep quiet when their opinion is counter to the
majority? It appears most people remain silent because the fear of social
isolation or ostracism is greater than the need to express one's opinion. With
the exception of the immediate personal sphere, where social isolation and
ostracism are not likely to take place, people will remain silent about their
counter opinion.[4] And silence, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out, can be and is
often interpreted as agreement.[5]
The desire to avoid isolation is a desire all humans seem to share.
David Hume wrote, "[Even] men of the greatest judgement and understanding ...
find it very difficult to follow their own reason or inclination, in opposition
to that of their friends and daily companions."[6] John Locke similarly wrote:
Solitude many men have sought, and been reconciled to: but nobody
that has the least thought or sense of a man about him can live in society
under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars and those he
converses with. This is a burden too heavy for human sufferance.[7]
Two observations about both Hume's and Locke's views must be noted.
First, they are writing about men as an exclusive category: they are not using
the word as an inclusive term exchangeable with 'humans.' Second, they are
talking about interaction in the public sphere. The public sphere they refer to
is the Victorian separate-spheres ideology where women were restricted to being
private citizens while men operated in both the public and private spheres.[8]
They were not referring to women as women did not have a public voice.
But both Hume and Locke are addressing the conditions that result in
what is referred to as the articulation gap. The articulation gap is when
people, finding no current or frequent repetition of their own opinions, lapse
into silence. Their silence in the public sphere essentially renders them mute
to society as a whole.[9]
Women have been mute to western society for much of its history. The
spiral of silence theory has two important aspects when it comes to women's
history and women's progress. First, there had to be some women, a hard-core
minority, who broke the spiral of silence for public opinion to change. Second,
the spiral of silence takes place in the realm of public opinion which is always
in the public sphere. Women's historical confinement to the private sphere means
that women did not have a voice. But, more importantly, as the lines between the
public and private spheres slowly break down, women still have less access to
public communication spheres such as the mass media.
When Hobbes, Hume, Locke and Noelle-Neumann are talking about fear of
isolation they are not talking about the response from the hard-core minority.
Most of their discussions center around the average or rational man, and in
Noelle-Neumann's case, the average or rational person. The hard-core minority is
the portion of society that will speak out publicly: it sees isolation as the
price it must pay for its public voice expressing what it believes to be the
truth.[10]
The hard-core minority in the womens' movements have included anyone
who dared say the unpopular or who espoused the controversial without quieting
down.[11] The list could include Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, Sarah
Grimke, Simone De Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Gloria Steinem, or Carol
Gilligan: the list should include anyone who spoke for the advancement of women
which has consistently been contrary to the tide of public opinion.
The difficulty of speaking out cannot be underplayed. Early in the
nineteenth century, women were admonished and censured for breaking the Biblical
mandate against women speaking in public. Frances Wright, an atheist, asserted
"truth had any sex."[12] Sarah Grimke and Maria Stewart during their fight for
abolition met with strong opposition sometimes being forced from the podium.[13]
Even if a woman had the firm conviction to speak out on a cause, she could
easily be silenced in the name of the predominant religion.
During the women's movement of this century the forces against women
speaking out were not as overt but access to a public voice was still limited.
Women were under represented or not represented in all media with the exception
of the women's magazines.[14]
But the women's magazines were no safe haven for women to openly
express their opinions as usually the publisher and most key editors were male.
This male dominance became the target of one hundred feminists on March 18,
1970, when they occupied the editorial offices of the Ladies' Home Journal
demanding it publish a "liberated issue" of the magazine as well as having a
female editor and an all-female staff and ending "exploitive" ads.[15] The
result was an eight-page insert in the August 1970 issue.[16] The supplement,
"The New Feminism," was written by non-staff and identified only with the
collective byline of "The Women's Liberation Movement."[17] The group of women
did pay a price for demanding a public voice: most news accounts characterized
the women in a condescending manner and as radical or militant feminists, that
is, social outcasts.
Before any women could speak out on their own behalf, they had to
have access to public discourse. The second aspect of the spiral of silence that
has affected the womens' movements more is the reality that public opinion
always rests in the public sphere -- the very sphere women have had no or
limited access to.
This limited access became more and more institutionalized with the
rise of liberalism. By the nineteenth century, the separation of the private and
public spheres in liberal theory grew into the false but widely accepted notion
that the two separate spheres were equally important. The idea that the two
spheres were equally valued seems absurd when viewed from the idea of access and
movement from one sphere into the other. Men had access and movement within
both. Women were confined to one. Where is the equality in a structure that
excludes half the population from being public citizens? As women have asked
since the seventeenth century, 'If all men are born free, how is it that all
women are born slaves?' [18] Locke's view, which was readily adopted by most of
the male thinkers of his time and beyond, was that the public sphere was man's
and the private sphere was man's and woman's.[19] All social life that occurred
outside the domestic sphere was man's. For women to change their lot was doubly
hard. They had to speak up as a minority but first they had to break down the
barriers that kept them from being participants in public discourse and thereby
having an influence on public opinion.
The term public opinion may be misleading and on the surface seem a
simple phenomenon as it employs two words with simple meanings. But public
opinion is not simply opinion that is public. Rather, the term refers to the
climate or prevailing conditions of a community's viewpoints which may include a
false sense of opinion consensus or a false sense of the majority opinion.
Public opinion always has implied values and mores. People know if one's opinion
will be seen as 'good' or 'bad' by the society. People, when talking about
published or broadcasted specific opinion information, have a sense about the
majority and minority opinions as well as a sense of the distribution and
frequency of those opinions.[20] Likewise, the relative strengths and weaknesses
of differing positions tend to be intuitively known by people. In a study where
college students were asked to identify climates of public opinion on the same
issue in their college community and their hometown, students could clearly and
accurately identify differences.[21]
Public opinion is only arrived at by public discourse. The public
discourse, primarily carried out through the media for the last 160 years, is
limited to "those persons in a community who are ready and in the position to
express themselves responsibly about questions of public relevance and thereby
exercise an office of criticism and control ... in the name of the
governed."[22] If this explanation of who can be part of the public dialogue is
carefully examined, women were not seriously included in this dialogue for much
of this country's history. Major players in the public dialogue are politicians
and even seventy years after enfranchisement, women are still under-represented
at every level of government. With a country that is 51 percent female, women
are pitifully represented on the national level with the House being eleven
percent women and the Senate eight percent women. Nowhere do women have
political parity with men: the world ratio of male to female politicians is ten
to one.[23] Women working in the media are slightly better represented than
their political counterparts but remain under represented to this day.[24]
Not all women could gain access to the public dialogue. As stated
above, people have the right of participation in public opinion when they are in
the position to express themselves responsibly about questions of public
relevance. The condition that a woman have position, responsibility and
knowledge about what is publicly relevant cannot be overlooked. Most women who
have had a voice in the public discourse in our country have met this condition
of position or credibility.
Women with position have been women who by their relationships have
status, women with money, women with marketable talent, women with education or
women with a combination of these attributes. The person often cited as the
earliest advocate of women's rights in this country, Abigail Adams, had position
mainly due to her marriage.[25] Judith Sargent Murray was "the daughter of a
prosperous merchant" and later the wife of a preacher.[26] The sisters Sarah and
Angelina Grimke grew up in a southern upper-class household.[27] Mary
Wollstonecraft had position by nature of her marketable talent.[28] Although she
did try several of the occupations that were suitable to young women at the time
such as taking care of children and being a governess, it was her remarkable
writing that enabled her voice to be heard by the public.[29] Education played
an extremely important role in giving some of the earliest women's rights
advocates a voice: Frances Wright had access to a college library while growing
up[30] and Margaret Fuller's studies have been described as "arduous."[31]
But it wasn't only women in earlier times who needed position to be
heard. Women were heard in the 1960s in this country precisely because they had
position. Consider Betty Friedan's role in the public discussion of women's
rights. It was not solely that she was the author of The Feminine Mystique. Her
position came from writing a best-selling book -- a book that in 1963 brought
feminism into the public dialogue. Her position was further elevated with an
invitation to the White House and a news media anxious to talk to her.[32]
Friedan would go on to be one of the founders of the National Organization for
Women, an organization that received a moderate amount of media attention. Not
coincidently, the bulk of the organization's "members were primarily drawn from
the ranks of the elite: articulate achievers with ... good media
presence."[33] Even today's voices in the women's movement have the position
needed to get listened to: Susan Faludi, author of Backlash, hails from the
prestigious New York Times while Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth and Fire
With Fire, is a Yale graduate.[34]
Position, or credibility, is not enough to have someone use his or
her access to the dialogue. Unless the person is of the hard-core minority, he
or she will not initially speak up as minority opinions are relegated to the
fringe of society and seen as less valuable and less morally good. In this
society, the small minority opinion is often framed by the media as not only
aberrant and deviant but as less viable and less morally sound.[35]
Research has found that some people are more prone to talk and this
relates directly to power. As Noelle-Neumann explains, "In a public situation,
men are more disposed to join in talk about controversial topics than are women,
... those belonging to higher social strata than those from lower social
strata."[36] People who perceive they have power will speak up. The result of
this tendency has definite consequences for the public's awareness of various
opinions. Women and people of lower socio-economic status have been found to
generally be less likely to voice their opinion about a controversial issue.[37]
Furthermore, a threat of isolation -- not social isolation itself -- is enough
to silence anyone who has less self confidence.[38] Women in our society tend to
have more issues with self confidence and self esteem than do men.[39] Which
means even today, women have more difficulty speaking up.
What tends to complicate the matter further is the media's role in
two areas. First, public opinion has two sources: the firsthand observation of
the real world and the always secondhand observation through the media. Most of
public opinion today is perceived through the media. This means that what does
not receive attention does not exist.[40] If an opinion does not exist for the
society being fed by the media, it has no chance of being part of the public
agenda or dialogue.
The second role is how well the media are able to give women and
their issues a voice -- how well media represent women. Better representation of
any marginalized group in any realm of society will have impact. In the
political arena, legislative bodies that have more female representatives have
better legislation on women's issues. [41] In the media, research has
demonstrated that at newspapers where there are more out gays and lesbians,
coverage on gay and lesbian issues is perceived to be better.[42] Other studies
have suggested that newspapers that have a higher percentage of African
Americans on their staffs have better coverage of the African American community
and its issues. Women and their representation in the media cannot be the sole
exception to better and more accurate coverage of their issues.
Looking at the composition of men and women in the media, like many
arenas of society, women are still the minority and often viewed as an anomaly
in the nation's newsrooms.[43] Women have made progress as the overall newspaper
workforce is 39 percent women but women still only account for 18 percent of
news executives.[44]
If one accepts the three major forces affecting the content and the
delivery of the news are the reporters, the news organizations and the sources,
then none of these forces should be overlooked.[45] Nor should the male-female
composition of these three be ignored.
Evidence suggests that gender does have some role in coverage. Even
though 39 percent of newspaper reporters and editors are women, the assignments
they receive and the play their stories receive are different than their male
counterparts. In a 1992 study of ten of the most prestigious U.S. dailies, page
one bylines were 70.7 percent male and 29.3 percent female.[46] The news media
in this country are charged with the responsibility to give an objective account
of the story. Inherent in this responsibility is the assumption the media
consumer will be presented with all sides of the story and a variety of
opinions. If men dominant the media, then their opinions will too.
Anita Hill: A Case Study in the Spiral of Silence
If one looks at the spiral of silence theory and applies it to Anita
Hill and her role in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, one is left with
a better understanding of both the theory and the Hill-Thomas situation. A
person's willingness to voice a viewpoint in the face of opposition depends upon
one's perception of the growing strength or weakness of that position and the
demographic sub-groups to which they belong. It is a wonder Hill spoke up at
all. Two forces in the climate of opinion were against her: the rising sentiment
that Thomas would be easily confirmed and the general feeling that sexual
harassment is either blown out of proportion by the victims, is not a serious
problem, or does not exist at all.
Prior to the hearings, Senators and Bush administration people alike
believed Thomas, in Senator John Danforth's words, "had it won."[47]
Conventional wisdom had Thomas with a secure sixty votes in the Senate.[48] Even
after the first day of the hearings went rather badly, no one seemed to think
his confirmation could be in danger. It was, in fact, "followed by an
orchestrated stampede of support."[49] The Bush administration was playing
political hardball and going forward with all their modern campaigns tactics to
get Thomas confirmed. The feeling in Washington was that it was inevitable
Thomas would make it to the high court. Even the most liberal of the Democratic
Senators -- Kennedy, Metzenbaum, and Leahy -- seemed to sit back and watch the
tide of public opinion say Thomas would be nominated.[50] What opposition there
was from outside interest groups was described as "weak and perfunctory."[51]
Hill also had talked to former colleagues, most still in Washington and insiders
in the political circle,[52] all shared the belief Thomas would be confirmed.
This information made Hill perceive public opinion of Thomas to run in direct
opposition of her opinion of him and undoubtedly diminished her willingness to
speak publicly about him. In the arena of public opinion, it appeared as if the
outcome of the war was known before the battle had even begun.
If the public sentiment and insider comments about Thomas' impending
confirmation were not enough to silence Hill, then the public's understanding
and feeling about sexual harassment may have been. Our society, even with the
high level of documented sexual abuse cases against women, still has great
contempt for the victims.[53] A variety of studies in the last ten years have
found the percentage of women sexually harassed on the job ranges from 40 to 70
percent. Yet only five percent of those who felt they have been harassed file
any kind of complaint or lawsuit.[54] Women who have been harassed have been
silenced. And members of oppressed groups are silenced in a variety of ways
ranging from being discouraged, shamed, mocked, ignored, or punished for
speaking out.[55] Victims of sexual harassment have had a false sense of the
prevalence of the problem because very few were talking about it publicly. Most
victims of sexual harassment responded with suffering in silence or switching
jobs: Hill initially did both.[56]
The idea that victims of sexual harassment suffer in silence is like
other situations that seem not to be of great importance, high incidence or have
a social stigma attached to them. Family violence and sexual abuse are examples:
both claim more women as victims. The key concept here is that the situations
seem to be happening minimally. Other people may very well share the same
experience and opinion but people remain silent because the fear of social
isolation is greater than the need to express one's experience and the
accompanying opinion.
Hill had confided in a few friends about Thomas prior to the
confirmation hearings but had never thought about accusing him in public.[57]
Even after she had spoken with staffers of members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Hill believed the charges remained anonymous and did not have her
name attached to them.[58] Her very descriptions of why she was resigned to
keeping silent smack right at the core of not wanting to be socially isolated.
Hill could not imagine people believing her claim that the man who was supposed
to be the number-one protector against sexual harassment was guilty of the very
crime. She also thought she would lose her job, be labeled a whistle blower or
be called a liar.[59] Hill said she "feared" if no other accusers came forward,
her accounts would be branded as "an isolated incident by someone who had been
recently divorced."[60] All of these things are potentially extremely socially
isolating.
In addition to above reasons of why Hill felt she would not be
believed, Hill is a member of three demographic sub-groups that have been
reluctant to speak publicly or have not had access to a legitimate public voice.
Female, black, and born poor, Hill's hesitancy is not surprising
As Hill seemed to know, her charges against Thomas were even more
isolating if you believe you are the only one to have experienced them. Others
sensed this, too, having fears about coming forward about Thomas' alleged
strange sexual appetite. Another black female former employee at the EEOC,
Angela Wright had described Thomas' behavior in a way that was consistent with
Hill's description. She spoke to Senate aides about Thomas and was asked to
submit a statement for the record but never appeared before the committee.[61]
After her lawyer informed her the questioning she would undergo was
characterized by Senator Biden as "rough,"[62] she refused to come forward
voluntarily feeling she had too much at risk[63] Kay Savage, another former
employee of the EEOC, was described as "afraid" and "scared" to come forward
although she had witnessed firsthand his penchant for published pornography.[64]
Both of these corroborating witnesses were silenced by fear that seems to have
been reinforced by those on the Senate Judiciary Committee or by the Committee's
staff. Rose Jourdain, another fellow EEOC employee who was hospitalized at the
time of the hearings, was willing to corroborate the allegations but was never
called.[65]
Hill, or any of Thomas' other accusers, could not be categorized as
part of the hard-core minority when it came to sexual harassment or women's
issues. Such a minority sees isolation as the price it must pay for its public
voice. Hill agreed to talk confidentially to the Senate Judiciary Committee
because she believed that other people were also coming forward. She believed
this because some aides told her there had been rumors. She incorrectly
interpreted this as meaning there were others and that those other people would
speak publicly.[66] Only after Hill's allegations were revealed in the press did
Hill speak publicly about Thomas and his alleged inappropriate behaviour.[67]
Those involved with trying to get Thomas confirmed understood the
role of a second or third accuser all too well. As White House communications
director David Demarest said, "With only one accuser, and everyone else saying
something contrary, the public is doubtful. But with two accusers ... the public
really listens."[68] Demarest is articulating the intuitiveness of the spiral of
silence: the more one side speaks, the more likely that opinion will prevail. By
having only one of Thomas' accusers speak, the court of public opinion would
side for the majority of the rhetoric: Anita Hill was one lone, lying voice and
Clarence Thomas was the target of a political set-up. The public was listening
but only got part of the message.
Although the media should be credited with breaking the story and
making Anita Hill's allegations public, it did not go far enough in doing its
job. At the time the story broke, seventeen Senators knew about the accusations
and countless members of their staffs did, too.[69] In a town where few people
keep their lips zipped, one has to ask how the media missed the fact that there
were other people willing to speak because of their firsthand knowledge of
Thomas and his questionable behavior.
The part of the message the public got to listen to was one-sided.
Regardless, when the public listens it makes judgements about whether someone is
good or bad, whether they are right or wrong. People know if one's opinion will
be seen as good or bad by the society. People have a sense about the majority
and minority opinions as well as a sense of the distribution and frequency of
those opinions. People know the relative strengths and weaknesses of differing
positions. Hill, understanding the public opinion on sexual harassment better
than most because of her experience at the EEOC, may have known people would not
see her lone allegations as serious. She may have not been surprised by the
all-too-common sentiment expressed by Senator Metzenbaum reacting to Hill's
allegations, "If that's sexual harassment, half the senators on Capital Hill
could be accused."[70]
Hill came forward initially because she thought she was not alone.
This lowered her perception of the risk of social isolation. But why did the
individuals on either side of the confirmation fight treat her allegations as
serious?
Hill had position and credibility. As a tenured law professor with a
J.D. from Yale, people would at the very least consider her allegations.[71] Add
to her credentials comments from former colleagues such as "She is one of the
most level-headed, fair-minded people I know," and many in Washington felt she
had a high degree of believability.[72] Senator Paul Simon knew if her
allegations were to be taken seriously she had to have credibility: in his
words, "I wanted to find out if she was a flake."[73] He found her to be both
serious and dignified.
Even though Hill had position, she was heard as a lone voice against
a chorus of disbelievers. This occurred through the media's coverage of the
hearings. The public got to see one woman tell her story. What was not in the
forefront were the others who had allegedly witnessed Thomas' questionable
sexual behavior. The public received little coverage of some of the women in the
Congress who felt the Senate was not taking the charge of sexual harassment
seriously. Senator Barbara Mikulski and Representative Pat Schroeder both
publicly questioned the Senate's handling of the situation prior to Anita Hill
speaking publicly.[74] But the media's focus was on the testimony of both Hill
and Thomas -- framing the hearings as a battle where there would surely have to
be a winner and a loser.
The loser, as we all know by now, was Hill with her lone voice going
against majority opinion. A Newsweek poll in October of 1991, the month of the
hearings, showed only 27 percent of women believed that Thomas had sexually
harassed Hill.[75] By December of 1992, Newsweek found that 51 percent of women
believed Hill's testimony.[76] A U.S. News & World Report poll a year after the
hearings found similar trends.[77] Other polls reflected the same shift with a
minimal margin of 20 more percentage points in favor of Hill's testimony.[78]
Professional women were more likely to believe Hill from the beginning assumedly
because they identified with Hill's experience.[79] Slowly, public opinion about
Hill's allegations and sexual harassment changed.
Some have charged that the media helped Hill's cause and that Hill
received more coverage because there were more women working in the media.[80]
This author finds such an assertion questionable because much of the coverage
was decidedly framed as skeptical of the woman and supportive of the man.
If one was to take a poll on sexual harassment today one might find
even more public support for the notion that sexual harassment does happen and
is a serious problem. Public opinion shifted as women who had been harassed and
silent for so long heard someone else break the silence. As Hill's experience
was echoed through out the country, the spiral was broken and one voice became
many.
But as Hill reminded a group in South Bend, Indiana, last year, "The
only question that remains is whether we will speak out as a community. One
thing that is for certain is we need to stop letting our fear of being labeled a
feminist silence us," (emphasis added).[81] Of her own experience she said, "If
I have learned nothing else since 1991, I have learned women can be an active
and vocal community voice."[82]
Women's voices and feminist causes are more likely than ever to be
part of the public dialogue. More women have a public life working outside the
home or serving in a political office. There are more women in the media -- the
window to public opinion. There are more female sources used in the media and
there are more female professionals and experts for reporters to call. More
women have position and that can help lessen every woman's fear of speaking out.
But public opinion is always tied to a time and a space -- and
undoubtedly that time and space can be unfriendly to women and feminist causes.
Anita Hill was just one woman caught in the cruel crossfire of public opinion.
She was caught because she dared to speak up about an issue controversial in
society. Controversy is the prerequisite for the potential of isolation in the
spiral of silence.[83] Hill expressed an opinion that was contrary to firmly
established public opinion. She asserted that she had been sexually harassed.
Meanwhile, public opinion was that women almost never are sexually harassed. The
public sentiment that was prominent was sexual harassment is infrequent and
unimportant.
There is always a potential risk for speaking out on an issue in
public. For women it may be more difficult in a society where most of the power
remains male. But speaking out leads to the end of the spiral of silence and a
better idea of what a public's true opinion is. For women, that may mean feeling
less marginalized in a patriarchal society and perhaps ending the grip the
patriarchy has on women's freedom.
[1] Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence: Public
Opinion -- Our Social Skin (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press,
1984), p. 182.
[2] Dominic Lasorsa, "Political Outspokenness: Factors Working
Against the Spiral of Silence," Journalism Quarterly, 68:131-140 (1991).
[3] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 42.
[4] Hernando Gonzalez, "Mass Media and the Spiral of Silence: The
Philippines from Marcos to Aquino," Journal of Communication, Autumn 1988, p 33.
[5] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 6.
[6] Ibid., p. 75.
[7] Ibid., p. 70.
[8] Nancy Fraser, "Sex, Lies and the Public Sphere: Some
Reflections on the Confirmation of Clarence Thomas," Critical Inquiry, Spring
1992, p. 609.
[9] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 173.
[10] Ibid., p. 170.
[11] The plural is used here to indicate inclusion of the woman
movement as well as the movements of this century.
[12] Josephine Donovan, Feminist Theory (New York, New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1992), p. 13.
[13] Ibid.
[14] See Kay Mills, "The Media and the Year of the Woman," and
Anon., "Who's Covering What in the Year of the Woman," in Media Studies
Journal, Winter/Spring 1993.
[15] Grace Lichtenstein, "Feminists Demand 'Liberation' In Ladies'
Home Journal Sit-in," The New York Times, Thursday, March 19, 1970.
[16] Anon., "Ladies Journal Has "Lib' Section: Supplement Was
Written by Militant Feminist Group," The New York Times, July 28, 1970.
[17] The Women's Liberation Movement, "The New Feminism," Ladies'
Home Journal, August 1970, 64-71.
[18] Carole Pateman, " Feminists Critiques of the Public/Private
Dichotomy," in Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and
Political Theory (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1988), p.
124.
[19] Ibid., p. 121.
[20] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 6.
[21] Carolyn Lin and Michael Salwen, "Predicting the Spiral of
Silence in Two Communities," Paper presented to the Mass Communication and
Society division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication, Washington, D.C., August 1995, p. 2.
[22] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 62.
[23] Anon., "Outlook," U.S. News & World Report, February 13,
1995, p. 45.
[24] See Kay Mills, "The Media and the Year of the Woman," and
Anon., "Who's Covering What in the Year of the Woman," in Media Studies
Journal, Winter/Spring 1993.
[25] Alice Rossi, ed., The Feminist Papers: From Adams to De
Beauvoir (New York, New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 7.
[26] Ibid., p. 16.
[27] Ibid., p. 282.
[28] Miriam Schneir, ed., Feminism: The Essential Historical
Writings (Vintage Books/Random House, 1972), p. 5.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Alice Rossi, op. cit., p. 88.
[31] Ibid., p. 145.
[32] Myra Marx Ferre and Beth B. Hess, "Re-emergence of a Feminist
Movement, 1963-1970," Controversy and Coalition: The New Feminist Movement
(Boston:Twayne Publishers, 1985), p. 54.
[33] Ibid., p. 54-55.
[34] Naomi Wolf, Fire With Fire (New York, New York: Random House,
1993), p. 375.
[35] See Pamela Shoemaker, "Political group viability as a
predictor of media attitudes," Journalism Quarterly, 61:889-892 (1984) and
Pamela Shoemaker, "Media treatment of deviant political groups," Journalism
Quarterly, 61:66-75 (1984).
[36] Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 24.
[37] Lin and Salwen, op. cit.
[38] Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 47.
[39] Gloria Steinem, Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem
(Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1992), P. 19-61.
[40] Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 150.
[41] Elizabeth Adell Cook, Sue Thomas, and Clyde Wilconx, eds.,
The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview
Press, 1994).
[42] Joseph P. Bernt and Marilyn Greenwald, an initial study
sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, January 1993.
[43] Kay Mills, op. cit.
[44] Ibid., p. 25.
[45] W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion (New York:
Longman Press, 1988), p. 106.
[46] Anon., "Who's Covering What in the Year of the Woman," Media
Studies Journal, Winter/Spring 1993, 135-138.
[47] Jean Mayer and Jill Abramson, Strange Justice: The Selling of
Clarence Thomas (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992) p. 215.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., p. 219.
[50] Ibid., p. 218.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Gloria Borger and Ted Gest with Jeanne Thorton, "The Untold
Story," U.S. News & World Report, October 12, 1992, p. 31.
[53] Robert Jensen and Elvia Arriola, "Feminism and Free
Expression: Silence and Voice," Paper presented to the Commission on the Status
of Women, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,
Atlanta, Georgia, August 1994.
[54] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit., p. 223.
[55] Jensen and Arriola, op. cit., p. 8.
[56] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit., p. 224.
[57] Ibid., p. 221.
[58] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.30.
[59] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit., p. 223.
[60] Ibid., p. 234.
[61] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.36.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit., p. 322.
[64] Ibid., p. 328.
[65] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.36.
[66] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit., p. 231.
[67] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.31.
[68] Mayer and Abramson, op. cit.,p. 324.
[69] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.31.
[70] Ibid., p. 235.
[71] Naomi Wolf, op. cit., p. 47.
[72] Jean Mayer and Jill Abramson, op. cit., p. 227.
[73] Ibid., p. 249.
[74] Ibid., p. 269.
[75] Eloise Salholz, "Did America 'get it'?" Newsweek, December
28, 1992, 120:26:20(3).
[76] Ibid.
[77] Borger, Gest, and Thorton, op. cit., p.31-36.
[78] Jean Mayer and Jill Abramson, op. cit., p. 352.
[79] Clyde Wilcox, "Why Was 1992 the "Year of the Woman"?
Explaining Women's Gains in 1992," in Elizabeth Adell Cook, Sue Thomas, and
Clyde Wilconx, eds., The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities, (Boulder,
Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), p. 7.
[80] Naomi Wolf, op. cit.
[81] Nancy Armour, "Hill: Don't let fear breed silent suffering,"
Lafayette Journal and Courier, March 22, 1995.
[82] Ibid.
[83] Noelle-Neumann, op. cit., p. 63.